Watchdog: Yemeni writer held after criticizing UAE forces

February 27, 2018

CAIRO (AP) — The Committee to Protect Journalists has urged the release of Yemeni journalist detained after he criticized local forces in southern Yemen, trained and funded by the United Arab Emirates.

CPJ said on Monday that Awad Kashmeem was detained last Wednesday in the coastal city of Mukalla in southern Yemen’s Hadramawt province and is being held at the military intelligence headquarters there.

Kashmeem criticized local UAE-backed forces and said they’d waged a fake campaign against al-Qaida.

CPJ’s Mideast coordinator Sherif Mansour said that “Kashmeem’s arbitrary detention ... shows that there is truly no safe space for journalists in Yemen.”

Kashmeem had posted on Facebook page that the UAE-trained troops “are talking about war, battles, deployment of troops, etc. but there is not death or injury of soldiers” in the alleged fighting.